400mm f/4. Anything good and "affordable"?

[K-amps]

After doing lots of research, I've failed to get excited about the illusive good, affordable 400 f/4 lens.  It's curious why Canon has not updated the aging 300 f/4 L IS (only 2 stops) and 400 f/5.6L, and those are not exactly cheap, either.

I just ordered the Kenko 2x DGX TC, as the IQ of my Kenko 1.4x DGX is stellar, and I will make do with the 2x TC on my Canon 70-200 f/2.8 MkII until something more exciting looms ahead..

I hope it works for you, however i don't know if it will stand up to the canon 2x Mk.iii and hence comparisons with the 100-400L might fall shot with the kenko. On the plus side... it will fir almost all EF lenses where as the Canon does not.

The clincher was I could order the Kenko 2x for $180 new from eBay.  Can't argue with that, and pretty much every user report I've read says Kenko 2x is indistinguishable from Canon 2x MkII, so even if Canon MkIII is a little better, who knows..

From what I have read, the MK.iii blows the Mk.ii in IQ.

You can research this on your own as well.

[infilm]

@drjlo.

What are you shooting that you want the reach of a 400mm-600mm lens? I ask because I recently discovered that my 5D2 will auto focus with my 300mm f4 and the 2x II extender in live view mode. If you're shooting something other than sports or quick moving objects, perhaps a 300 and a 2x extender might work for you. Hope this helps.

[K-amps]

@drjlo.

What are you shooting that you want the reach of a 400mm-600mm lens? I ask because I recently discovered that my 5D2 will auto focus with my 300mm f4 and the 2x II extender in live view mode. If you're shooting something other than sports or quick moving objects, perhaps a 300 and a 2x extender might work for you. Hope this helps.

Yes it works even with 400mm f5.6 + 2x @ F11 under liveview, but it is slower than MF and less accurate than MF. At best it will get you close to the focal point then you can manually adjust it for max focus by hand.

[drjlo]

@drjlo.

What are you shooting that you want the reach of a 400mm-600mm lens? I ask because I recently discovered that my 5D2 will auto focus with my 300mm f4 and the 2x II extender in live view mode. If you're shooting something other than sports or quick moving objects, perhaps a 300 and a 2x extender might work for you. Hope this helps.

So f/8 AF works in live view but not viewfinder? 
I unfortunately am known to chase after birds and love shooting them in flight.  THAT can get quite expensive in Canon land.  I'll try the Kenko 2x TC on the 70-200 MkII, which fortunately has fabulous IS, AF, and MTF to burn, hopefully all enough to compensate for 2x TC effects.  It already works great with 1.4x TC..

[swampler]

I unfortunately am known to chase after birds and love shooting them in flight.  THAT can get quite expensive in Canon land.  I'll try the Kenko 2x TC on the 70-200 MkII, which fortunately has fabulous IS, AF, and MTF to burn, hopefully all enough to compensate for 2x TC effects.  It already works great with 1.4x TC..

I have the Kenko 2x TC on the 70-200 f/2.8L (not MkII and not IS) and it works well stopped down a bit. Can get some haze wide open, but not always.

[RLPhoto]

An Old FD 400mm F4.5? Close enough Eh?

[infilm]

@drjlo.

What are you shooting that you want the reach of a 400mm-600mm lens? I ask because I recently discovered that my 5D2 will auto focus with my 300mm f4 and the 2x II extender in live view mode. If you're shooting something other than sports or quick moving objects, perhaps a 300 and a 2x extender might work for you. Hope this helps.

So f/8 AF works in live view but not viewfinder? 
I unfortunately am known to chase after birds and love shooting them in flight.  THAT can get quite expensive in Canon land.  I'll try the Kenko 2x TC on the 70-200 MkII, which fortunately has fabulous IS, AF, and MTF to burn, hopefully all enough to compensate for 2x TC effects.  It already works great with 1.4x TC..

I have the 70-200 f2.8 IS and the Canon 2x II extender. I have to say that I was quite impressed with both the IQ and the speed of the AF. To be honest when I bought the extender I really was expecting the worst, but ended up being very happy.

[Mike Miami]

[/quote]

I have the 70-200 f2.8 IS and the Canon 2x II extender. I have to say that I was quite impressed with both the IQ and the speed of the AF. To be honest when I bought the extender I really was expecting the worst, but ended up being very happy.
[/quote]

+1

[Jettatore]

You might consider some combination of lens + converter on a crop body camera rather than your very nice 5DIII, or just crop the images your 5DIII takes in post which is probably even better than using a crop body.  Probably not the advice you want, but it might be worth jotting down some notes to see what combinations that would give you and in the end could likely cost you less than a 70-200 IS which was your suggested price range.

Something like getting a 2x converter plus a crop body, with your existing 70-200  brings you to a crop body equivalent of a 224-640 @5.6 for example.  Again, using the same combination on your 5DIII and cropping the image to the same composition will probably produce comparable if not better results?  Again probably not what you want, just a thought.

[briansquibb]

You might consider some combination of lens + converter on a crop body camera rather than your very nice 5DIII, or just crop the images your 5DIII takes in post which is probably even better than using a crop body.  Probably not the advice you want, but it might be worth jotting down some notes to see what combinations that would give you and in the end could likely cost you less than a 70-200 IS which was your suggested price range.

Something like getting a 2x converter plus a crop body, with your existing 70-200  brings you to a crop body equivalent of a 224-640 @5.6 for example.  Again, using the same combination on your 5DIII and cropping the image to the same composition will probably produce comparable if not better results?  Again probably not what you want, just a thought.

I find the best converter being the 1.3 converter called the 1D4

[FarQinell]

Could you not make do with the slightly smaller image size given by the Canon 300/2.8 IS version 1?

Arguably one of the sharpest lenses Canon ever made.

Very sharp wide open with huge 107mm nominal aperture.

Resolving power is proportional to aperture (there are other things to consider of course - before anybody chips in!).

For the 400/4 DO you have to stop down to f5.6 to get half decent results from what I have read.

400/5.6 equates to only 71mm aperture - so less detail in your image. In fact the little 400/5.6 prime performs just as well as the DO and is much much cheaper.

With the 300/2.8 you get a very good 420mm with a 1.4TC.

The only thing going for the 400/4 DO is its relatively light weight.

Plenty of 300/2.8 version 1 coming on the market as rich folk trade up to version 2!

[briansquibb]

Could get a 400 f/2.8 and stop down 

[drjlo]

I have the 70-200 f2.8 IS and the Canon 2x II extender. I have to say that I was quite impressed with both the IQ and the speed of the AF. To be honest when I bought the extender I really was expecting the worst, but ended up being very happy.

Just got the Kenko 2x TC DGX.  On 5D MkIII, it ONLY works with 70-200 II, not anything else, which I expected since my Kenko 1.4x only works with 70-200 II as well.  Kenko can keep denying compatibility problems with 5D III and put their head in the sand, but problem exists. 

On 70-200 + 2x TC, probably cropped out 80% of the photo.  It was at dusk, so iso2000.

 
DZ3C3817 by drjlo1, on Flickr

[SambalOelek]

I have the 70-200 f2.8 IS and the Canon 2x II extender. I have to say that I was quite impressed with both the IQ and the speed of the AF. To be honest when I bought the extender I really was expecting the worst, but ended up being very happy.

Just got the Kenko 2x TC DGX.  On 5D MkIII, it ONLY works with 70-200 II, not anything else, which I expected since my Kenko 1.4x only works with 70-200 II as well.  Kenko can keep denying compatibility problems with 5D III and put their head in the sand, but problem exists. 

On 70-200 + 2x TC, probably cropped out 80% of the photo.  It was at dusk, so iso2000.

 
DZ3C3817 by drjlo1, on Flickr

Nice level of detail considering the 2x converter. There is quite a lot of visible noise, though, did you push the exposure in post?

[drjlo]

I have the 70-200 f2.8 IS and the Canon 2x II extender. I have to say that I was quite impressed with both the IQ and the speed of the AF. To be honest when I bought the extender I really was expecting the worst, but ended up being very happy.

Just got the Kenko 2x TC DGX.  On 5D MkIII, it ONLY works with 70-200 II, not anything else, which I expected since my Kenko 1.4x only works with 70-200 II as well.  Kenko can keep denying compatibility problems with 5D III and put their head in the sand, but problem exists. 

On 70-200 + 2x TC, probably cropped out 80% of the photo.  It was at dusk, so iso2000.

 
DZ3C3817 by drjlo1, on Flickr

Nice level of detail considering the 2x converter. There is quite a lot of visible noise, though, did you push the exposure in post?

It was pretty dark by then and even at ISO2000 I could see noise without pushing the exp.  I had DPP in "high speed" mode, which does not offer NR, so it was converted to jpeg without any NR.  Just after this quick test shot, it basically became dark, so next test shots will have to wait..